I am a Tombstone Tourist: someone who loves to wander cemeteries. I find it akin to visiting a museum: an opportunity to enjoy rarely seen sculpture, intricate carvings, and amazing architecture, all in a tranquil outdoor setting. This blog is about cemetery culture, art, history, issues of death, and genealogy - subjects of current relevance. I usually find something that intrigues me and makes me want to dig deeper. Care to join me? Read on...

Friday, February 22, 2013

Grave
robbing, also known as tomb raiding, is when a grave or tomb is opened for the
purpose of stealing artifacts or personal objects buried with the
deceased.And,
there are times, when the grave is robbed for the actual remains,
usually to demand and collect a ransom with.

Alexander T Stewart

St. Mark's

In
April 1876, the body of one of the richest men in New York was stolen.Multi-millionaire Alexander Turney
Stewart’s body was stolen from his
crypt, just three weeks after his interment at St. Mark’s Church-in-the-Bowery
in New York City.

Personal Ads

For
two years, the grave robber, who went by the name Romaine, communicated with
the Stewart family’s liaison though obscure personal ads placed in the New York
Herald.

Ransom

Terms
were finally agreed upon and the ransom amount was set at $20,000.At an undisclosed location, the body
was exchanged for the specified ransom amount.No one was ever apprehended for the grave robbery.

Episcopal Cathedral of the Incarnation

A positive identification of the body
was never made, but the
returned remains were entombed in a new vault in the Episcopal Cathedral of the
Incarnation in Garden City, Long Island.

President Lincoln in his Coffin

There
was an attempt to steal President Abraham Lincoln’s body in 1876 and hold it for ransom.Members of a counterfeiter's gang
attempted to steal Lincoln’s body from his tomb at Oak Ridge Cemetery on
November 7, 1876.The plan was to
take Lincoln’s remains and hide them in the sand dunes of northern Indiana until a
ransom of $200,000 was paid.The
gang was also going to demand the release of one of their members from prison.

State Prison at Joliet, Illinois

Lincoln's Tomb

However,
a police informant who had infiltrated the gang let the secret service know of
the plan. Eight detectives rushed the tomb that night, but the grave robbers got
away.All were arrested within a
few days and convicted of attempted grave robbing.All were given a sentence of one year in the Illinois State
Prison at Joliet.

Inside Lincoln's Tomb

Lincoln
was reburied in his mausoleum, but reportedly not in the casket. In 1901, Robert Todd Lincoln had his
father’s remains disinterred and placed inside a steel cage that was buried 10
feet beneath the floor of his tomb.The cage was then encased in 4,000 pounds of concrete so that it could
not be opened again.

Charlie Chaplin

Chaplin's Grave

Two
grave robbers took the coffin of silent film star, Charlie Chaplin, just months after his death.Chaplin had died on Christmas day,
1977, and was buried in the Vevey Cemetery in the village of Corsier,
Switzerland.

Robbing a Grave

The
grave robbers dug up his casket in March 1978, and sent a photo of the coffin
to Chaplin’s widow along with a demand for £400,000 ($650,000 US.)Oona Chaplin refused to pay.The robbers then threatened Chaplin’s
youngest children.

Officials
caught the two men after an intense surveillance operation in May. Roman Wardas
was sentenced to 4 and a half years in prison. Accomplice Gantcho Ganev
received a suspended sentence.

Chaplin's Coffin

Police
located Chaplin’s coffin buried in a nearby cornfield.Chaplin was reburied in his grave–
under several feet of reinforced concrete.

Presley's Funeral

Elvis Presley

Just
days after the death of Elvis Presley, there were rumors that a group of men planned to steal his body, and
hold it for a ransom of $10-million.Presley had been buried next to his mother in a mausoleum at Forest Hill
Cemetery in Memphis, Tennessee.

Graceland

Presley's Grave

Police confronted three men they found hanging around the Presley Mausoleum
after dark. Since they had no tools with them, officials let them go. Elvis’s grave, along with his mothers, was moved to the Meditation
Garden at Graceland, Presley’s home.The graves are now monitored by security 24-hours a day.

Whitney Houston

Houston's Casket

After
the death of Whitney Houston in
February 2012, round-the-clock armed security guards were placed at her
grave.Houston was reportedly
buried wearing over half-a-million dollars worth of jewelry and clothing.Her casket was said to be gold-lined
and worth tens of thousands of dollars.

Fairview Cemetery

The
Fairview Cemetery, in Westfield, New Jersey was closed to all but lot owners
after Houston’s burial. Officials attempted to limit the crowds and keep security in
place.One year later, Houston's grave is guarded 24
hours a day by foot patrol, and there is talk of encasing her casket in concrete.

Johann Strauss

Johannes Brahms

And
the latest case of grave robbing involves a Slovak man, who claimed last summer that he had robbed the graves of classical
composers Johann Strauss and Johannes Brahms – of their teeth. Ondrej Jajcaj
supposedly dug up both graves in the Viennese Central Cemetery to get teeth
from each of the composers in order to start a museum. He claims to have robbed
other hundreds of other graves of skulls and personal effects to also put in
his museum.

Strauss' Grave

Brahms' Grave

Austrian
police began investigating the claims last May and discovered that indeed, the
teeth had been removed from the musicians. If convicted, Jajcaj could face 6
months to ten years in prison.

Although
you might assume that grave robbing doesn't happen much anymore, it appears that it is still something
to be concerned about - even in the highly electronic world of the 21st Century.

Friday, February 15, 2013

It
was February 14th 1929.Now, eighty-four years later, people are still mesmerized by
the events and the stunned by the brutality of the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre.

North Clark Street

What
began as a quiet morning on the North Side of Chicago turned into one of the most atrocious mob hits in gangland history.It was an incident that would become associated with gang violence and
killings for decades to come.

SMC Cartage Garage

Four
men, posing as police officers conducting a routine raid, entered the SMC
Cartage garage at 2122 North Clark Street.The building was being used to store bootleg liquor.

St. Valentine's Day Massacre

Seven
men were gunned down.Six of them
were part of George “Bugs” Moran’s North Side Irish gang. They had waged a continuous gangland battle against Al Capone for control of the bootleg liquor in the city of
Chicago.At the start of the year,
Moran had one of Al “Scarface” Capone’s South Side Italian gang members
murdered.Capone vowed revenge on
Valentine’s Day.

George "Bugs" Moran

Moran
received a call on February 13th that a special shipment of bootleg whiskey would be coming in
the next day, February 14th, to the garage on North Clark.Moran agreed to be there when it
arrived.

The
next morning around 10:00, six of Moran’s men met at the garage to wait for him.They were:

James Clark

James
Clark, Moran’s brother-in-law, and second in command.

Frank Gusenberg

Peter Gusenberg

Frank
Gusenberg and his brother, Peter Gusenberg, both hit men for Moran.

Adam Heyer

Adam
Heyer, bookkeeper for the gang.

Albert Weinshank

Albert
Weinshank managed several ‘businesses’ for Moran.

Johnny May

Highball

Johnny
May, the gang’s auto mechanic, was also there working on a vehicle.Johnny had brought his dog, Highball, with
him.

Ad for Reinhardt Schwimmer

And,
hanging around, as usual, was local optometrist, Reinhardt Schwimmer.Schwimmer enjoyed the thrill of being
on the fringe of the gang.

As
Moran’s car was approaching the garage, a police car pulled up in front and
four men got out; two were in uniform, two were not.Moran thought it was a raid and directed his driver to keep going. It wasn't until later in the day when he heard of the killings that he realized it had been a set up for him.

Guns Used in Killings

Aftermath

The
“police” entered the garage and lined the seven men up against a wall.They then pulled out Thompson sub-machine guns and opened
fire. Over 70 rounds of ammunition were fired. All of Moran’s men were killed,
along with Schwimmer.Only the dog
survived.

Crowd Watches

Shortly
afterwards, the landlady of the adjoining building sent a boarder next door to
see why the dog was barking and howling.After discovering the murders, the police were summoned.

Police Remove Bodies

Chicago
police were stunned at the carnage.Six men were dead, each sprayed with 15 to 30 bullets from the Tommy
guns.The seventh, Frank Gusenberg,
was still alive.He was rushed to
a local hospital, but his injuries were too severe to survive.Although he was questioned about who
had shot him, Gusenberg replied, “Nobody shot me.”

Al Capone

Bugs Moran

When
Moran was told about the killings, he immediately fingered Capon as ordering
the hit.When the media questioned
Capone, he responded, "The only
man who kills like that is Bugs Moran".

The
public was shocked by the cold-blooded brutality of the murders. Chicago
gangster, Al Capone was the prime suspect in the murders.But Capone could not be linked to the
killings.He had an air-tight alibi - he was in Miami at the
time.

Jack McGurn

Police
arrested several men suspected of being gunmen, but only one was directly connected to Capone.“Machine Gun” Jack McGurn was a member
of Capone’s Outfit and said to be the mastermind behind the massacre.He supposedly hired gang members from
outside of Chicago, so that none would be recognized, if there were survivors.
Those believed to be the triggermen were Albert Anselmi, Fred Burke, John
Scalise, and Joseph Lolordo.

John Scalise & Al Anselmi

Fred Burke

Jack
McGurn also had a provable alibi.Fred
Burke was arrested, but before he could be tried, he was charged with killing a police officer and sentenced
to life in prison.John Scalise
and Albert Anselmi were found dead on a back road in Indiana two months after the shootings.

Capone's Mug Shot

Although
the St Valentine’s Day Massacre did end the North side gang’s control of the
city, it also began Capone’s downfall.The public felt that Capone had gone too far.Once public sentiment turned against him, the police were
able to step in and declare him “Public Enemy Number 1.”

2122 Clark Street, Today

In
the end, no one was ever tried or convicted for the murders. The garage was
torn down in 1967. Forty-six years after the demolition of the garage, tourists
still stop by the site, now an empty lot – and
remember that bloody Valentine's Day.

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